Niagara At Large first posted the following petition, including an introductory commentary urging you to sign it , in the days leading up to the last long weekend of this summer when many of our readers were either away on vacation or were wanting – quite understandably – to have a little end-of- summer time away from what is happening in the news.

So Niagara At Large is posting it here again because we feel the issue and what the petition urges the Ontario government to take action on is important enough that it deserves another run. Please give it your serious consideration.

Reposted this September 7th, 2017, with an introductory commentary by NAL publisher Doug Draper

Welland Rding MPP Cindy Forster

Niagara, Ontario – Possibly no member of the provincial legislature has been more vocal in her determination to get the Ontario government to act on concerns and questions many Niagara area residents have raised about the way millions of their tax dollars are being spent by at the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority – an NPCA with a board of directors stacked with municipal politicians appointed by a majority of their political counterparts (including themselves, in many cases) on the Al Caslin-led regional council – than Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster.

For her efforts, Forster has weathered a relentless backlash of criticism, peppered with insults and scorn, coming from members of the NPCA board and a cast of their political cronies and willing enablers.

But the Welland Riding MPP, who has weathered enough tragedy in her own life, including the recent death of her brother, has taken the concerns and questions raised by her constituents and others in the greater Niagara area to heart and has carried on.

The question is this.

Ontario Natural Resources Minister Kathryn McGarry meets Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board chair and Fort Erie regional councilor Sandy Annunziati at an event in the province earlier this year. Perhaps, McGarry should meet with a group of Niagara citizens to hear their concerns about the NPCA.

After a year of witnessing the NPCA launch a lawsuit against a private citizens, St. Catharines resident and retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Ed Smith, for questions he has raised about the NPCA’s hiring practices, awarding of contracts and other matters, and its censuring of a long-time, respected Lincoln area regional councillor Bill Hodgson for whatever it thinks he did wrong around his insisting on an independent audit of its books, and a host of other questionable actions by this board and the body’s senior administrators – where are the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, and her Minister of Natural Resources, Kathryn McGarry?

When are they going to exercise whatever powers they have under an Ontario Conservation Act to do something that counts about the NPCA?

Hello Madam Premier and Minister McGarry.

Don’t go using whatever powers you have to tell the mayor of Toronto (as the premier did not so long ago) that he can’t toll some of his own city roads to pay for their maintenance and discourage car congestion, then turn around and say you have little or no power to do anything about the NPCA mess here.

Many of us in Niagara don’t buy the line that that there is little or nothing you can do, and if you go on doing little or nothing, I am sure, based on all I have heard, that many in this region will show you just how much we don’t buy it when we go out to vote in next spring’s provincial election.

The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority’s board of directors in session.

In the meantime, here is a very timely and necessary petition to the provincial government from Cindy Forster, a member of Ontario’s third party, the New Democrats.

NIAGARA AT LARGE encourages you to join the conversation by sharing your views on this post in the space below the Bernie quote.

A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.

For more news and commentary from Niagara At Large – an independent, alternative voice for our greater bi-national Niagara region – become a regular visitor and subscriber to NAL atwww.niagaraatlarge.com .

“A politician thinks of the next election. A leader thinks of the next generation.” – Bernie Sanders

One response to “Join Niagara MPP in Signing a Petition Urging Province to Protect Wetlands & Make Conservation Authorities More Publicly Accountable”

To be honest originally, though I was CCF/NDP from the get go, I was NOT a instant supporter of Cindy Forster ….But……During the past few years this Welland MPP has become one hell of a fine Representative of the People and I admire her courage in standing up to people who in my opinion are nothing more than loud mouth, ignorant scum. She has NOT wilted in her defense of People’s “RIGHTS” and is fighting the good fight every day against “Charlatans” who would use any underhanded method in their arsenal to defame her. Disgust basically describes the actions of people who were elected to protect the Rights “ALL” the taxpers of this Region not just the elite monied few.